Rabbitohs bring Dragons down to earth with 24-10 upset
SOUTH Sydney brought the Dragons back to earth to claim their fourth win in five matches. While victory wasn’t enough for them to climb into the top four, don’t be fooled — Souths are working towards something special.
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NO sooner had South Sydney convincingly toppled competition leaders St George Illawarra than the Rabbitohs were labelled competition contenders.
The Bunnies are back for more titles.
Former NSW and Australian star Greg Alexander compared South Sydney to the Rabbitohs side which famously won the 2014 premiership.
Alexander watched Souths defeat the Dragons 24-10 at ANZ Stadium before declaring: “They’re contenders.”
Souths have won four of their past five matches and six from their last eight. While victory wasn’t enough for them to climb into the top four, don’t be fooled — Souths are working towards something special.
“Looking at the Bunnies line-up this year, and watching how (Souths coach) Anthony Seibold has got them going, I think this line-up is the equal as they had in 2014,” Alexander said.
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“The Burgess brothers are back to the sort of form that saw them win the comp, Damien Cook is out of dummy half running like Issac Luke, Cody Walker is a creative five-eighth.
“John Sutton has reinvented himself as a running back-rower, Alex Johnston is there, Angus Crichton is a powerhouse on the right side, Dane Gagai is a new player in the centres.
“They’re not just a top-eight or top-four side, they are contenders. There is still a lot of footy to go but from what I have seen over the last month and a half, it was just bedding down what Seibold had been working on over the off-season.
“Now it has clicked and I think they have all the ingredients to not only play semi-final footy but I think they are in the mix to win the premiership.”
Seibold was quick to play down any talk about his side’s premiership possibilities.
Asked should the media and fans start talking up Souths as contenders, Seibold said: “No, definitely not. No, no, we’ll steer clear of that. But we are pleased with our progress, that’s for sure.
“No one in the organisation is getting ahead of themselves. We are working hard, we have a really humble, hardworking group, including our coaching staff.
“For me, I don’t think about that too much myself. My job is to get home tonight, probably buy dinner for mum, she is down from Rocky (Rockhampton) and then I will look at the video.
“We are building a little bit of consistency into our game but we’ve still got a bit of work to do. We are certainly improving.
“There has been a lot of talk about our attack and the improvement in that part of the game so far, but I thought it was our ‘D’ (defence) that won us the game today. That was most pleasing. The Dragons are the number one side for a reason — they made it really tough for us to score points.”
Dragons coach Paul McGregor, aware his side was labelled the benchmark after thumping Melbourne last week, echoed the line when asked about Souths.
“They’re the benchmark,” McGregor joked at the post-match press conference.
“They are a good side. We knew before the game that we would be playing some quality opposition. They’ve got some big powerful forwards, some speed out wide and some good experience through their whole side.
“They have won six of their last eight. We knew what was coming. They out-enthused us a touch.”
Souths players will be back together again on Monday when the squad attends the funeral of Walker’s mother, Linda Stewart, who died of a heart attack last week.
“We are all going to head to Cody’s mum’s funeral in Nowra,” Seibold said.
“I think it’s really important we support one of our mates.”
The match didn’t reach any great heights because of 16 penalties and 28 errors. But the two competition points continue Souths’ surge toward the finals.
Souths shocked Saints by scoring twice inside the opening seven minutes for a surprise 10-0 lead that they extended to 12-0 by half-time.
Crichton and teammate Sam Burgess were strong, while Cook edged out St George Illawarra’s Cameron McInnes in the hooking battle.
Saints had chances but couldn’t convert. It was only their second loss this year and perhaps they were a little flat after being on top for the first nine weeks of the competition.
Souths essentially won the game when they repelled six consecutive sets on their own tryline through the first half. It was a defining period.
“I just thought we got a bit of confidence out of that,” Seibold said.
Inglis added: “We had to improve on last week.”
SOUTH SYDNEY 24 (A Crichton C Graham H Hunt G Inglis tries A Reynolds 4 goals) bt ST GEORGE ILLAWARRA 10 (T Frizell 2 tries G Widdop goal) at ANZ Stadium. Referee: Adam Gee, Ziggy Przeklasa-Adamski. Crowd: 13,062